The Philosophy of Religion On the Basis of Its History, Volume 2

Immanuel Kant: Philosophy of Religion

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The field is related to many other branches of philosophy, including metaphysics , epistemology , and ethics. The philosophy of religion differs from religious philosophy in that it seeks to discuss questions regarding the nature of religion as a whole, rather than examining the problems brought forth by a particular belief system. It is designed such that it can be carried out dispassionately by those who identify as believers or non-believers. Rowe characterized the philosophy of religion as: The term "Philosophy of Religion" did not come into general use in the West until the nineteenth century, [6] and most pre-modern and early modern philosophical works included a mixture of religious themes and "non-religious" philosophical questions.

In Asia, examples include texts such as the Hindu Upanishads , the works of Daoism and Confucianism and Buddhist texts. In the Western world, early modern philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes , John Locke , and George Berkeley discussed religious topics alongside secular philosophical issues as well. The philosophy of religion has been distinguished from theology by pointing out that, for theology, "its critical reflections are based on religious convictions".

Some aspects of philosophy of religion have classically been regarded as a part of metaphysics. In Aristotle 's Metaphysics , the necessarily prior cause of eternal motion was an unmoved mover , who, like the object of desire, or of thought, inspires motion without itself being moved. Today, however, philosophers have adopted the term "philosophy of religion" for the subject, and typically it is regarded as a separate field of specialization, although it is also still treated by some, particularly Catholic philosophers , as a part of metaphysics.

Different religions have different ideas about Ultimate Reality, its source or ground or lack thereof and also about what is the "Maximal Greatness". One of the main differences among religions is whether the Ultimate Reality is a personal God or an impersonal reality.

Philosophy of Religion

In Western religions, various forms of Theism are the most common conceptions of the ultimate Good, while in Eastern Religions , there are theistic and also various non-theistic conceptions of the Ultimate. Theistic vs non-theistic is a common way of sorting the different types of religions.

There are also several philosophical positions with regard to the existence of God that one might take including various forms of Theism such as Monotheism and Polytheism , Agnosticism and different forms of Atheism. Monotheism is the belief in a single deity or God , who is ontologically independent. Keith Yandell outlines roughly three kinds of historical monotheisms: Greek, Semitic and Hindu.

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Greek monotheism holds that the world has always existed and does not believe in Creationism or divine providence, while Semitic monotheism believes the world is created by a God at a particular point in time and that this God acts in the world. The attempt to provide proofs or arguments for the existence of God is one aspect of what is known as natural theology or the natural theistic project.

This strand of natural theology attempts to justify belief in God by independent grounds. Perhaps most of philosophy of religion is predicated on natural theology's assumption that the existence of God can be justified or warranted on rational grounds. There has been considerable philosophical and theological debate about the kinds of proofs, justifications and arguments that are appropriate for this discourse. Eastern Religions have included both theistic and other alternative positions about the ultimate nature of reality.

One such view is Jainism , which holds a dualistic view that all that exists is matter and a multiplicity of souls jiva , without depending on a supreme deity for their existence. There are also different Buddhist views, such as the Theravada Abhidharma view, which holds that the only ultimately existing things are transitory phenomenal events dharmas and their interdependent relations.

In Indian philosophical discourses, monotheism was defended by Hindu philosophers particularly the Nyaya school , while Buddhist thinkers argued against their conception of a Creator God Sanskrit: Though Advaitins do believe in the usual Hindu gods, their view of ultimate reality is a radically monistic oneness Brahman without qualities and anything which appears like persons and gods is illusory maya. For most of these non-theistic traditions, the path to ultimate reality includes various spiritual practices such as yoga and meditation.

It is important to note that the above philosophical views do not necessarily entail atheism. Traditionally, Jains and Buddhists did not rule out the existence of limited deities or divine beings, they only rejected the idea of a single all powerful creator God or First cause posited by monotheists. All religious traditions make knowledge claims which they argue are central to religious practice and to the ultimate solution to the main problem of human life. Evidentialism is the position that may be characterized as "a belief is rationally justified only if there is sufficient evidence for it".

One of the strongest positions of evidentialism is that by William Kingdon Clifford who wrote: Both of them rely on the Ockhamist view that in the absence of evidence for X, belief in X is not justified. Many modern Thomists are also evidentialists in that they hold they can demonstrate there is evidence for the belief in God. Another move is to argue in a Bayesian way for the probability of a religious truth like God, not for total conclusive evidence.

Some philosophers however, argue that religious belief is warranted without evidence and hence are sometimes called non-evidentialists. They include fideists and reformed epistemologists. Alvin Plantinga and other reformed epistemologists are examples of philosophers who argue that religious beliefs are "properly basic beliefs" and that it is not irrational to hold them even though they are not supported by any evidence. This is qualified by the proviso that they can be defended against objections this differentiates this view from fideism. A properly basic belief is a belief that one can reasonably hold without evidence, such as a memory, a basic sensation or a perception.

Plantinga's argument is that belief in God is of this type, because within every human mind there is a natural awareness of divinity. William James in his essay " The Will to Believe " argues for a pragmatic conception of religious belief. For James, religious belief is justified if one is presented with a question which is rationally undecidable and if one is presented with genuine and live options which are relevant for the individual. Some work in recent epistemology of religion goes beyond debates over evidentialism, fideism, and reformed epistemology to consider contemporary issues deriving from new ideas about knowledge-how and practical skill; how practical factors can affect whether one could know whether theism is true; from formal epistemology's use of probability theory; or from social epistemology particularly the epistemology of testimony, or the epistemology of disagreement.

For example, an important topic in the epistemology of religion is that of religious disagreement, and the issue of what it means for intelligent individuals of the same epistemic parity to disagree about religious issues. Religious disagreement has been seen as possibly posing first-order or higher-order problems for religious belief. A first order problem refers to whether that evidence directly applies to the truth of any religious proposition, while a higher order problem instead applies to whether one has rationally assessed the first order evidence.

Higher order discussions focus on whether religious disagreement with epistemic peers someone whose epistemic ability is equal to our own demands us to adopt a skeptical or agnostic stance or whether to reduce or change our religious beliefs. While religions resort to rational arguments to attempt to establish their views, they also claim that religious belief is at least partially to be accepted through faith , confidence or trust in one's religious belief.

There are also different positions on how faith relates to reason. One example is the belief that faith and reason are compatible and work together, which is the view of Thomas Aquinas and the orthodox view of Catholic natural theology. According to this view, reason establishes certain religious truths and faith guided by reason gives us access to truths about the divine which, according to Aquinas, "exceed all the ability of human reason.

Another position on is Fideism , the view that faith is "in some sense independent of, if not outright adversarial toward, reason. Modern philosophers such as Kierkegaard , William James , and Wittgenstein have been associated with this label. Kierkegaard in particular, argued for the necessity of the religious to take a non-rational leap of faith to bridge the gulf between man and God.

Wittgensteinian fideism meanwhile sees religious language games as being incommensurate with scientific and metaphysical language games, and that they are autonomous and thus may only be judged on their own standards. The obvious criticism to this is that many religions clearly put forth metaphysical claims. Several contemporary New Atheist writers which are hostile to religion hold a related view which says that religious claims and scientific claims are opposed to each other, and that therefore religions are false.

The Protestant theologian Karl Barth — argued that religious believers have no need to prove their beliefs through reason and thus rejected the project of natural theology. According to Barth, human reason is corrupt and God is utterly different from his creatures, thus we can only rely on God's own revelation for religious knowledge. Barth's view has been termed Neo-orthodoxy. Phillips argues that God is not intelligible through reason or evidence because God is not an empirical object or a 'being among beings'. As Brian Davies points out, the problem with positions like Barth's is that they do not help us in deciding between inconsistent and competing revelations of the different religions.

The topic of whether religious beliefs are compatible with science and in what way is also another important topic in the philosophy of religion as well as in theology. This field draws the historical study of their interactions and conflicts, such as the debates in the United States over the teaching of evolution and creationism. The field also draws the scientific study of religion, particularly by psychologists and sociologists as well as cognitive scientists.

Various theories about religion have arisen from these various disciplines. One example is the various evolutionary theories of religion which see the phenomenon as either adaptive or a by-product. Another can be seen in the various theories put forth by the Cognitive science of religion. These personal experiences tend to be highly important to the individuals who undergo them. One could interpret these experiences either veridically, neutrally or as delusions.

Both monotheistic and non-monotheistic religious thinkers and mystics have appealed to religious experiences as evidence for their claims about ultimate reality. Philosophers such as Richard Swinburne and William Alston have compared religious experiences to everyday perceptions, that is, both are noetic and have a perceptual object, and thus religious experiences could logically be veridical unless we have a good reason to disbelieve them.

According to Brian Davies common objections against the veridical force of religious experiences include the fact that experience is frequently deceptive and that people who claim an experience of a god may be "mistakenly identifying an object of their experience", or be insane or hallucinating. Indeed, a drunken or hallucinating person could still perceive things correctly, therefore these objections cannot be said to necessarily disprove all religious experiences. Martin, "there are no tests agreed upon to establish genuine experience of God and distinguish it decisively from the ungenuine", and therefore all that religious experiences can establish is the reality of these psychological states.

Naturalistic explanations for religious experiences are often seen as undermining their epistemic value. Explanations such as the fear of death , suggestion , infantile regression , sexual frustration , neurological anomalies "it's all in the head" as well as the socio-political power that having such experiences might grant to a mystic have been put forward. Each is in an abnormal physical condition, and therefore has abnormal perceptions.

The hidden assumption in Russell's argument is that bodily and mental states that interfere with reliable perceptions of the physical world also interfere with reliable perceptions of a spiritual world beyond the physical, if there is such a spiritual world to be perceived. Perhaps this assumption is reasonable, but it certainly is not obviously true. In other words, as argued by C. Broad , "one might need to be slightly 'cracked'" or at least appear to be mentally and physically abnormal in order to perceive the supranormal spiritual world.

William James meanwhile takes a middle course between accepting mystical experiences as veridical or seeing them as delusional. He argues that for the individual who experiences them, they are authoritative and they break down the authority of the rational mind. Not only that, but according to James, the mystic is justified in this.

But when it comes to the non-mystic, the outside observer, they have no reason to regard them as either veridical nor delusive.

The study of religious experiences from the perspective of the field of phenomenology has also been a feature of the philosophy of religion. Just like there are different religions, there are different forms of religious experience. Indian texts like the Bhagavad Gita also contain theophanic events. The diversity sometimes to the point of contradiction of religious experiences has also been used as an argument against their veridical nature, and as evidence that they are a purely subjective psychological phenomenon.

In Western thought, religious experience mainly a theistic one has been described by the likes of Friedrich Schleiermacher , Rudolf Otto and William James. According to Schleiermacher, the distinguishing feature of a religious experience is that "one is overcome by the feeling of absolute dependence. He described this as "non-rational, non-sensory experience or feeling whose primary and immediate object is outside the self" as well as having the qualities of being a mystery, terrifying and fascinating.

Rowe meanwhile defined a religious experience as "an experience in which one senses the immediate presence of the divine. Non-monotheistic religions meanwhile also report different experiences from theophany, such as non-dual experiences of oneness and deeply focused meditative states termed Samadhi in Indian religion as well as experiences of final enlightenment or liberation moksha , nirvana , kevala in Hinduism , Buddhism and Jainism respectively.

Another typology, offered by Chad Meister, differentiates between three major experiences: Another debate on this topic is whether all religious cultures share common core mystical experiences Perennialism or whether these experiences are in some way socially and culturally constructed Constructivism or Contextualism. According to Walter Stace all cultures share mystical experiences of oneness with the external world, as well as introverted "Pure Conscious Events" which is empty of all concepts, thoughts, qualities, etc.

Perennialists tend to distinguish between the experience itself, and its post experience interpretation to make sense of the different views in world religions. Some constructivists like Steven T. Katz meanwhile have argued against the common core thesis, and for either the view that every mystical experience contains at least some concepts soft constructivism or that they are strongly shaped and determined by one's religious ideas and culture hard constructivism.

All religions argue for certain values and ideas of the moral Good. Non-monotheistic Indian traditions like Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta find the highest Good in nirvana or moksha which leads to release from suffering and the rounds of rebirth and morality is a means to achieve this, while for monotheistic traditions, God is the source or ground of all morality and heaven in the highest human good. The world religions also offer different conceptions of the source of evil and suffering in the world, that is, what is wrong with human life and how to solve and free ourselves from these dilemmas.

A general question which philosophy of religion asks is what is the relationship, if any, between morality and religion. Brian Davies outlines four possible theses: Monotheistic religions who seek to explain morality and its relationship to God must deal with what is termed the Euthyphro dilemma , famously stated in the Platonic dialogue " Euthyphro " as: Another important topic which is widely discussed in Abrahamic monotheistic religious philosophy is the problem of human Free will and God's omniscience.

God's omniscience could presumably include perfect knowledge of the future, leading to Theological determinism and thus possibly contradicting with human free will. Belief in miracles and supernatural events or occurrences is common among world religions. A miracle is an event which cannot be explained by rational or scientific means. The Resurrection of Jesus and the Miracles of Muhammad are examples of miracles claimed by religions. Skepticism towards the supernatural can be found in early philosophical traditions like the Indian Carvaka school and Greco-Roman philosophers like Lucretius.

David Hume , who defined a miracle as "a violation of the laws of nature", famously argued against miracles in Of Miracles , Section X of An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding For Hume, the probability that a miracle hasn't occurred is always greater than the probability that it has because "as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws [of nature], the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined" Enquiry.

According to Rowe, there are two weaknesses with Hume's argument. First, there could be other forms of indirect evidence for the occurrence of a miracle that does not include testimony of someone's direct experience of it. It is a fact of human experience that we do engage in metaphysical speculation. So what are the transcendental conditions of our capacity to do so?

But, as we never can have sensible experience of objects corresponding to such transcendent ideas and as the concepts of the understanding, without which human knowledge is impossible, can only be known to apply to objects of possible experience, knowledge of the soul, of the cosmos, and of God is impossible, in principle.

Science, Philosophy, and Religion

So what are we to make of ideas that can never yield knowledge? Here Kant makes another innovative contribution to epistemology. He says that ideas can have two possible functions in human thinking. Although it is important, we cannot here explore this distinction in the depth it deserves. They are relevant to our value-commitments, including those of a religious sort. Although none of them refers to an object of empirical knowledge, he maintains that it is reasonable for us to postulate them as matters of rational faith.

Such rational belief can be religious—namely, faith in God.

The fourth of these particularly concerns us here, as reason purports to be able to prove both that there must be an absolutely necessary Being and that no such Being can exist. His dualism can expose this apparent contradiction as bogus, maintaining that in the realm of phenomenal appearances, everything exists contingently, with no necessary Being, but that in the realm of noumenal things-in-themselves there can be such a necessary Being.

But, we might wonder, what about the traditional arguments for God?

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If even one of them proves logically conclusive, would not that constitute some sort of knowledge of God? He maintains that there is a trichotomy of types of speculative arguments for God: He cleverly shows that the first of these, even if it worked, would only establish a relatively intelligent and powerful architect of the world and not a necessarily existing Creator.

In order to establish it as a necessary Being, some version of the second approach is needed. But, if that worked, it would still fail to show that the necessary creator is an infinitely perfect Being, worthy of religious devotion. Only the Ontological Argument will suffice to establish that. But here the problems accumulate. The Ontological Argument fails because it tries to attribute infinite, necessary existence to God; but existence, far from being a real predicate of anything, is merely a concept of the human understanding.

Then the cosmological arguments also fail, in trying to establish that God is the necessary ultimate cause of the world, for both causality and necessity are merely categories of human understanding. Although Kant exhibits considerable respect for the teleological argument from design, in addition to its conclusion being so disappointingly limited, it also fails as a logical demonstration, in trying to show that an intelligent Designer must exist to account for the alleged intelligent design of the world.

Yet he remains a champion of religious faith as rationally justifiable. So how can he make such a position philosophically credible?

Kant, Immanuel: Philosophy of Religion | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Here we must turn to his ingenious Critique of Practical Reason. However, there is no reason to believe that it can ever be achieved by us alone, acting either individually or collectively, in this life. So it would seem that all our efforts in this life cannot suffice to achieve the highest good. Yet there must be such a sufficient condition, supernatural and with attributes far exceeding ours, identifiable with God, with whom we can collaborate in the achievement of the highest good, not merely here and now but in the hereafter.

Kant does not pretend that the moral argument is constitutive of any knowledge. If he did, it could be easily refuted by denying that we have any obligation to achieve the highest good, because it is, for us, an impossible ideal. The moral argument rather deals with God as a regulative idea that can be shown to be a matter of rational belief.

The famous sentence near the end of the second Critique provides a convenient bridge between it and the third: As morality leads Kant to God and religion, so does the awesome teleological order of the universe. We recall that, while criticizing the teleological argument from design, Kant exhibited a high regard for it. Such physical teleology points to a somewhat intelligent and powerful designing cause of the world. But now Kant pursues moral teleology, which will connect such a deity to our own practical purposes—not only to our natural desire for happiness, but to our moral worthiness to achieve it, which is a function of our own virtuous good will.

He gives us another version of his moral argument for God, conceived not as the amoral, impersonal metaphysical principle indicated by the teleological argument from design, but rather as a personal deity who is the moral legislator and governor of the world.

Such faith is inescapably doubtful, in that it remains reasonable to maintain some doubt regarding it, and a matter of trust in teleological ends towards which we should be striving. It is only by analogy that we can contemplate such matters at all Judgment , pp. One of the abiding problems of the philosophy of religion is how we can speak and even think about God except in anthropomorphic human terms without resorting to an indeterminate fog of ineffable mysticism. The great rationalists are particularly challenged here, and Hume, whom Kant credits with awaking him from his dogmatic slumbers, mercilessly exploits their dilemma.

Kant appreciates the dilemma as acutely as Hume, but wants to solve it rather than merely highlighting it. Hume means to replace theism with an indeterminate deism. He conceives of the God of rational theology as the causal author and moral ruler of the world. In the first part of the Lectures , Kant considers the speculative proofs of God, as well as the use of analogous language as a hedge against gross anthropomorphism. But, as we have already discussed the more famous treatments of these topics in the first Critique and the Prolegomena , respectively , we can pass over these here.

The second part of the Lectures starts with a version of the moral argument, which we have already considered in connection with its more famous treatment in the second Critique. If, indeed, an infinitely perfect and supremely moral God governs the world with divine providence, how can there be so much evil, in all its multiple forms, in that world?

More specifically, for Kant, how can moral evil be consistent with divine holiness, pain and suffering with divine benevolence, and morally undeserved well-being and the lack of it with divine justice? He analyzes possible attempts at theodicy into three approaches: Thus, theodicy, like matters of religion more generally, turns out to be a matter of faith and not one of knowledge Theology , pp.

In a work published the year he died, Kant analyzes the core of his theological doctrine into three articles of faith: All of these doctrines of faith can be rationally supported. This leaves open the issue of whether further religious beliefs, drawn from revelation, can be added to this core.

As Kant makes clear in The Conflict of the Faculties , he does not deny that divinely revealed truths are possible, but only that they are knowable. So, we might wonder, of what practical use is revelation if it cannot be an object of knowledge? His answer is that, even if it can never constitute knowledge, it can serve the regulative function of edification—contributing to our moral improvement and adding motivation to our moral purposes Theology , pp. The first one, regarding human knowledge, had been covered in the first Critique and the Prolegomena ; the second, regarding practical values, was considered in his various writings on ethics and socio-political philosophy; the fourth, regarding human nature, had been covered in his philosophical anthropology.

Thus we can conclude that Kant himself sees this book, the publication of which got him into trouble with the Prussian government, as crucial to his philosophical purposes. Hence we should take it seriously here as representative of his own rational theology. In his Preface to the first edition, he again points out that reflection on moral obligation should lead us to religion Religion , pp. In his Preface to the second edition, he offers an illuminating metaphor of two concentric circles—the inner one representing the core of the one religion of pure moral reason and the outer one representing many revealed historical religions, all of which should include and build on that core Religion , p.

In the first book, Kant considers our innate natural predisposition to good in being animals, humans, and persons and our equally innate propensity to evil in our frailty, impurity, and wickedness. Whether we end up being praiseworthy or blameworthy depends, not on our sensuous nature or our theoretical reason, but on the use we make of our free will, which is naturally oriented towards both good and evil. At any rate, we are born with a propensity to evil; but whether we become evil depends on our own free acts of will. Thus Kant demythologizes the Christian doctrine of original sin.

He then distinguishes between the phony religion of mere worship designed to win favor for ourselves and the authentic moral religion of virtuous behavior. In the second book, Jesus of Nazareth is presented as an archetype symbolizing our ability to resist our propensity to evil and to approach the virtuous ideal of moral perfection.

Philosophy of religion

What Kant does not say is whether or not, in addition to being a moral model whose example we should try to follow, Jesus is also of divine origin in some unique manner attested to by miracles. Just as he neither denies nor affirms the divinity of Christ, so Kant avoids committing himself regarding belief in miracles, which can lead us into superstition Religion , pp. In the third book, Kant expresses his rational hope for the ultimate supremacy of good over evil and the establishment of an ethical commonwealth of persons under a personal God, who is the divine law-giver and moral ruler—the ideal of the invisible church, as opposed to actual realities of visible churches.

Whereas statutory religion focuses on obedient external behavior, true religion concerns internal commitment or good will. Mere worship is a worthless substitute for good choices and virtuous conduct. However, some faiths can be relatively more adequate expressions of the religion of moral reason than others Religion , pp. In his particularly inflammatory fourth book, Kant probes the distinction between legitimate religious service and the pseudo-service of religious clericalism. The ideal of genuine godliness comprises a combination of fear of God and love of God, which should converge to help render us persons of morally good will.

So what about such religious practices as prayer, church attendance, and participation in sacraments? Mere external shows of piety must never be substituted for authentic inner virtue Religion , pp. Yet it is quite admirable that, in the last few years of his life, despite struggling with the onset of dementia that made any such task increasingly challenging, he kept trying to explore new dimensions of the philosophy of religion.

As has already been admitted, the results, located in his fragmentary Opus Postumum , are more provocative than satisfying; yet they are nevertheless worthy of brief consideration here. The work comprises a vast quantity of scattered remarks, many of which are familiar to readers of his earlier writings, but some of which represent acute, fresh insights, albeit none of them adequately developed. He then adds a bold idea, which breaks with his own previous orthodox theological concept of a transcendent God. This notion of an immanent God that is, one internal to our world rather than transcendently separate from it , while not carefully worked out by Kant himself, would be developed by later German Idealists most significantly, Hegel.

While conceding that we think of God as an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent personal Being, Kant now denies that personality can be legitimately attributed to God—again stepping out of mainstream Judeo-Christian doctrine.

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